Vigil
by LittleLongHairedOutlaw
Summary: In Persia, Nadir tends to a gravely injured Erik, and remembers and worries and prays. Erik drifts caught between the worlds of waking and unconsciousness.
1. Nadir

**A/N:** **Inspired by a Tumblr post which suggested a scene where the Khanum - out of a desire to publicly humiliate Erik - ordered him into a cage fight which triggers him and he's helpless to defend himself with the force of his flashbacks. This is the aftermath. Warnings for blood, serious injuries, and reference to violence.**

* * *

His eyes flicker for the barest moment, but do not open, and you cannot help the disappointment that flares in your heart. You know it is selfish of you to want him to wake, terribly, horribly selfish. If he woke he would not be coherent, would know only the savage pain of his wounds. He would not know you, would look at you through dim eyes that see only another world. Every moment he's conscious is another moment he suffers and it is better for him to sleep, and that is why you keep forcing the medicines between his lips that the physician leaves to ensure sleep. But if he is to die—if he—he can't die without waking! He can't just slip away like that! He can't!

Your heart pounds painfully, lungs aching tight, and you draw a deep breath to try to compose yourself, brush the tears away. You need to remain calm, now. You have to stay calm, for both of your sakes.

It will soon be time to clean his wounds again. The physician has instructed regular cleaning if Erik is to have any chance to survive, checks in as often as he is permitted to for to see for himself, to leave fresh instructions.

He looks down on you, the physician, for staying with Erik, for choosing to tend to his wounds yourself and not leave it in the hands of servants. But he cannot understand, will never understand. You have to be here now. There is nowhere else for you.

(There is no one else left for you.)

Reza's face swims before your eyes, your poor dear boy, and you blink him away, your heart twisting. Erik brought him rest. Erik brought him peace. And you ache to pull your boy close to you, to hold him and hold him forever, but he is so far out of your reach now and nothing will ever fill the hollowness beneath your ribs again.

(Perhaps it would have been kinder to let Erik go, to let him have peace then instead of forcing life to stay in his body and—no. You could not let him die like that. You could never let him die like that.)

A low whimper brings you back, away from Reza's still face and Erik's limp body lying in the dirt to Erik lying here before you, his face hollow and tight. He whimpers again, and gently you take the cloth from his forehead, dip it into the bowl of cold water, wring it out and mop the beads of sweat gently from his face. He gasps, eyes fluttering open just enough for you to see their rims of golden iris before they slip closed again.

(They fluttered like that as you knelt beside him in the dust, his body so broken you hardly dared to touch him for fear of bringing him more pain, chest bleeding from a dozen jagged gashes. You would have gathered him in your arms if you had been able to bring yourself to risk it. And his eyes fluttered, and he gasped something that might have been "Nadir", might have been a plea for mercy, before they rolled closed and he lay still. And for one awful, terrible moment you feared him dead as easy as that, until he drew a halting breath, and coughed out a spray of blood.)

His lung, his liver, his leg. His right arm. His ribs. Even his face, his face that you have barely been able to keep your eyes off, a strange mix of fascination and pity and sympathy writhing in your gut with the aching longing to protect him. He cannot wear his mask now, not with his fever, not with his wounds, and the face that he has hidden so long from you is not so very terrible any more.

Better to see his face, and know that he lives.

You do not know how long you have been sitting here by his side. The turnings of day and night hardly matter when Erik is barely breathing, when his fever is so high that he murmurs brokenly in languages you cannot understand. You catch faint wisps of his own natural, lilting tongue, echoes of Russian, and more besides that you have never heard, likely never will, and surely, surely those are ones that he's learned in his travels across the land.

You wish you could answer him, wish you knew what to say to settle him, but all you can do is murmur to him as softly as if he were Reza, as Reza was as a young boy, and pray that he can understand, or that the tone might be enough to bring him some comfort.

Your vigil is interrupted by Darius' regular visits, bringing broth, and fresh water, and he urges you to get some rest with those worried lines in his face, and promises that he will take care of Erik in your stead but if you leave Erik for a moment he might forget to breathe, he might _die_ and if he dies and you're not here—

A moan slips from your throat and you clamp down on it, ball your left hand into such a tight fist your nails bury themselves in your palm, sharp crescents that almost pierce the skin and it might be easier if they did, if they drew blood. It might be easier to breathe.

(Erik was covered in so much blood when you reached him you couldn't see his wounds, couldn't see where it was all coming from and you can still see his blood on your hands though you've washed them a hundred times, scarlet etched into the cracks of your nails. You cannot see the wounds with the bandages, but the weeping blood has seeped through, stained them faintly pink.)

Erik's fingers twitch on the sheets, pale and delicate and weak and in spite of your better instincts, in spite of your knowing that he does not like to be touched, that he flinches at the merest brush of fingers, and in spite of a hundred protests screaming through your brain, you reach out and take his hand, and squeeze it gently. He whimpers, his head lolling towards you and faintly he breathes, sounding so very young, "Maman."

And it is not your language, but it does not need to be. You think you would know that word in any language, and if it would bring him any peace you would search through a hundred lands to find his mother and bring her to him, to ease his pain. Tears tighten in your throat again and you swallow them down, draw a shuddering breath.

Erik sighs, as if he hears your thoughts, and you squeeze his fingers tighter. His fingers have come through unscathed, and if there is any comfort to be found in this whole mess it is that. He will still be able to play his music if— _when_ he recovers. When. He _has_ to. He survived the poison and you thought no man could survive that, even as he whimpered and moaned and rambled delirious and lapsed into a coma. He survived that and he can survive this, too, if you fight hard enough, if _he_ fights hard enough.

It flashes before you again, the image of him standing trembling in that cage. You never wanted to see him tremble, never thought he could, but he stood there trembling, his face pale with his mask stripped off, and as every blow fell on him he did not try to fight, and through the cheering of the crowd and the soft laughter from the Khanum, you heard his ribs crack as he crumpled to the ground. And he did not try to fight.

(He was gasping for breath by then, barely able to hold himself up.)

Your stomach churned, and your heart ached to turn away, to not watch, to not take part in the spectacle, but someone had to watch who took no joy in it, for Erik's sake, and that someone had to be you. You owed him that much.

(Watching him, afterwards, lying so still, and the physician tending to him only because you pleaded for him to, you felt as if you could kill the Khanum yourself, and it took all you had to stay with Erik and not run off in search of her. It would do Erik no good if you got yourself killed in his name.)

You swallow, and smooth your hand gently through his thin hair. He sighs softly, moans, and there is nothing you can do, nothing you can do except sit there, and wait, and pray.

And it is not enough, but it will have to be. It will have to be.


	2. Erik

A voice drifts to you through the darkness, conjuring images of green eyes and a creased brown face, smiling at you softly. The face hovers before you, lines of worry etched around the eyes and your fingers ache to reach out and smooth the lines away, but you have not the strength to lift them.

He fades away, and for a long time there is only silence.

* * *

The face appears again. You remember it from before, only paler now. The lips are tighter, brow furrowed, and he murmurs something in a desperate tone but you can't quite grasp the words, your thoughts too slow, and it's all you can manage to sigh in answer, before the darkness flickers over him again.

* * *

Heat and pain. Pain and heat. Beating on you as if you've been lying naked on the desert sand, the sun scorching your skin, peeling it off, and what is left is nothing but a crumbling skeleton but that is what you are anyway, crumbling into dust beneath their gaze.

* * *

There was a woman, once. A woman with the most beautiful face you have ever seen. You have searched half the world and never found another like her, with her long dark hair and eyes hard as flint. Her face like porcelain, but you could never touch her, never, no matter how you longed to. Your touch would break her like everyone else.

* * *

Fingers, scrabbling at your throat and frantic voices, pain searing in your chest. Light pierces your eyes, sharp and watery and you can't breathe can't breathe can't—

Air whistles cold in your throat and you gasp, sparks dancing before your eyes, one of your own magic tricks meant to dazzle an audience that can never understand, will never see, and you draw another breath, blood hot and iron in your mouth, and another, and another, and can't see anything, only the darkness, spreading in again.

"Easy, Erik, easy." The voice is soft in your ear, soft and you cling to it, to every word, as if they were lifelines cast out to bring you back. "Easy...all right now...just breathe." Breathe, breathe, breathe. How easy it would be to breathe...

* * *

The music is gentle, as light as if...as if it was of the angels. There was an angel, once. She was shy and you terrified her like you terrified everyone, and her fingers were so careful as she bound your wrists and dried your tears and you ached to have a mother like her, as gentle as her but she would never have you.

* * *

"Don't fight it, Erik." Strong hands wrap around your wrists. You would fight those hands if you had the strength. They'll lock you away, lock you away in a home for mad people in a cage and you'll never get out the walls closing in on you never—

Cold on your face, wiping the heat away and it's so nice, so easy, the light so dim you can't make out anything, and it washes away again, lost in the words, "You're safe now."

* * *

Two men, two fathers. Both in black, soft voices, kind eyes, reading from old books. But animals can't go to Heaven, animals don't have souls, but you know otherwise and you want no part of a Heaven that doesn't have animals in it. You'd take the fire any day over that.

* * *

Your hands were rough from hammers and chisels, but he bathed them and rubbed in salves to help them and his smile was kind and you would have stayed with him forever if you could.

* * *

Falling, falling. Always falling, in all of your dreams, from windows, from parapets, off horses, caught in the undergrowth, crumpling into the dust and his arms were soft around you but your lungs burned for breath, ribs aching, the ground too hard.

* * *

Soft whimpers reach your ears, from so very far away and you can't find them, can't stop them. They grate on your nerves, make your heart flutter and fingers twitch and you can't stop them, they just keep coming and coming those whimpers and moans.

* * *

A monster in the mirror, golden eyes and a hole for a nose like something dead, and you can't breathe looking at it. It will come through the mirror and kill you, tear you apart with that crooked grin on its face and the glass pierces your wrists, buries itself in them but you need to banish that monster and send it away or it will hurt you, and monsters always come for bad little boys, don't they?

* * *

The pain is red behind your eyes, pain in your chest and pain in your legs and pain in your arms and stabbing in your head. A world of pain, and you can barely breathe, can feel nothing but the sharp ache as if they've laid you open beneath their knives, a dissection. You could not dissect your own vocal cords but they will dissect you and you would fight them off if your arms were not so heavy but it's so hard to breathe, so hard—

A flicker of light, and something bitter on your tongue and for a long time you know no more.

* * *

When next you surface it is to hushed voices, and the words drift to you in snatches.

"...need to rest...no...good to him exhausted..."

"...can't...might wake...panic...not recognise..."

"...not...place, Master but..."

"...too weak...need...be here...next few hours..."

"...you say...a break...go..."

No! No he can't go, that face that is always there in the faint light, the soft green eyes so creased with worry and you have done so much to worry him, so much to hurt him, he can't go you need him. They'll take you if he's not here, lock you away and carve you up and you can't survive in a cage, you won't survive, the walls closing in on you—

"Easy, Erik, easy, I'm here. You're all right, you're all right, I'm here. I promise I won't leave, I promise."

The voice is strong, stronger than any you have known, and the lull of it is too much, more than you can fight, the darkness pulling you down and down...

* * *

A boy, light in your arms, his face pale and body limp, breath fluttering through parted lips. And you knew he was dying the moment you laid eyes on him, but you did this to him, you did this, you're the one who's going to stop his heart, that heart that should beat always and never know an ounce of pain. You destroy everything you touch and the tears are wet on your cheeks, humid beneath the mask but you can't take the mask off or you'll frighten him like everyone else before him.

* * *

Harsh breaths, gasped, grating on your ears, chest heaving, pain burning sharply in your ribs.

"...worse...infection...fever too high...get...down...bath..."

Strong arms wrap around you, a heartbeat beneath your ear, strong and steady and you hang on that heartbeat, the most important thing in the world.

A splash, scarlet streaking white marble. The cold sinks into your bones, so cold, wrapping you in ice, slithering through your blood and if it gets to your heart if it—

"...little cooler...keep his head up...mind the wounds..."

The beat is still there and you draw in a breath, own heart fluttering in your chest and you match yourself to it, or try, the easiness of it. And when the darkness comes, this time, the heartbeat goes with you, and it is not so terrible.

* * *

The breeze flutters easy over your skin, and you turn your head towards it. It is cool on your face, soft, and if you could you would lie here forever, in that breeze.

Pain sears hot across your belly, and a whimper reaches your ear, the voice that follows it more welcome now than ever. "Don't try to move, Erik. Just rest." Rest. That sounds like the best idea you've ever heard, and you sigh, the breeze bearing you away.

* * *

The voice is always there, soft and gentle, murmuring as if to a child, and that voice will get you through, and it is easier to breathe listening to it. There is something you are supposed to say to that voice, something you need to tell it, but you can't just find the words...just out of your grasp.

Your fingers twitch, the effort of it almost more than you can take, and the voice gasps. "Erik? Did you—can you—?"

Your eyes flicker open to a dim room, and you blink hard, trying to focus on the face hovering over you, and no face has ever been so welcome.

You draw a breath, and swallow, and the name comes to you easily, your throat raw and aching. "Nadir?"

A tired smile breaks across his face, and relief flutters light in your stomach, your fingers twitching in his hand again, and he squeezes them softly. "Your eyes are clearer than I've seen in days."

You are too tired to find words to reply, your thoughts too sluggish, and your eyes flicker closed in spite of your best efforts to keep them open, but it matters not now. He will be there when you wake again, and everything will be all right now.


	3. Nadir, Erik, and Nightmares

Whimpers wake you, whimpers that are not your own, and you look over and in the dim light see only Erik's face, his own eyes closed and pale face creased. Nightmare. Another nightmare. It has been a week since his fever broke, since he looked at you through eyes that recognised you and did not see a ghost. A whole week, and the nightmares have not left him once. It is only the opium that lets him sleep peacefully.

You wonder what it is he sees in the darkness, and decide that it is best you do not know. If it is enough to upset _Erik_ it cannot be anything small.

Well, you cannot sleep if he is fighting the nightmares. You are tired, tired to the very bone after those long days, long _weeks_ , of tending to him, (of keeping him alive), but you cannot, in all good conscience, leave him to fight his nightly demons alone.

(You thought he was a demon, once, what seems so long ago. How very wrong you were.)

You sigh, and swing your feet to the floor, the rug soft and warm between your toes. Silently you pad over to Erik, and kneel down beside him, taking his hand. You would shake his shoulder, to be certain to wake him, but that would jar his wounds and hurt him worse.

"Erik," you call, squeezing his fingers, "Erik."

He gasps, his eyes flickering open as he lurches at you, fingers scrabbling to curl around your throat, but he's too weak and he falls into your arms. You ease him back down, smooth your hand over his hair, whispering all the soothing platitudes you used when Reza had nightmares. _You're safe now you're all right you're safe I'm here you're safe_. His breathing is rough, hard, harsh enough that you're certain his wounds are giving him pain. In the dim light his eyes shine damp and golden, and his trembling fingers brush your cheek.

"Na…Na… _dir_?"

"Yes, Erik. It's me."

"But…but…" He frowns, still gasping, his fingers slipping from your face to your collar, plucking at it, and you gently lay your hand over them to still them. He does not usually wake up like this. Normally his eyes rove over your face and he slips back into sleep, the opium pulling him down, and you sit with him until his breathing evens, however long it takes. But he is only getting more and more unsettled tonight, and you squeeze his fingers tighter.

"Do not fret. There is no need for you to fret. You're safe now, I promise."

"A cage…I thought…" Each word is such effort for him, and you try to tell him to stop, to not speak and just save his strength, but he shakes his head and cries, "Don't let them lock me away!"

Your stomach churns even as you shush him, the bile rising in your throat, and despite yourself, despite the fact that he is _Erik_ and normally flinches away from touch, you lie down beside him and pull him into your arms.

His trembling stills and, careful of his bandages, you lay your hand flat on his back. Your thumb finds a small patch of uncovered skin, your heart aching to help him, aching to comfort him, as you rub small circles into that skin. Though his fever is gone, he is still too warm.

He draws a shuddering breath, and you press your cheek to his head and whisper, "tell me if I hurt you." He has suffered enough pain, suffered so much pain and you should never have let them put him into that cage to fight, and though they did not listen you should have fought until they listened, until they relented. But you were helpless and, a little voice in the back of your mind whispers, if you had fought you would both be dead now.

Tears burn your eyes and you swallow. "No one will ever put you into a cage again, Erik. I swear. I should have stopped them, I should have found _some way_ but I didn't and now…I'm sorry, Erik. I'm sorry."

"…were going to…put me away…with lunatics…" His voice is muffled by your chest, and cold sweat beads on your forehead at his words. Lock him away? Who was going to lock him away? You know that, when he was a boy, he was kept in a cage. That much you've learned over the last few weeks of listening to him in his delirium, but that's different from putting him away!

"Who?" The word slips unbidden from your lips, and your breath catches in your throat.

His voice is as small as a child's when he whispers, "Maman."

Maman? His—his _mother?_ His _mother_ was going to lock him away? What? Why? How could she?

"Oh, Erik."

You feel tears wet on your skin, and his voice is thick as he whispers, "She never loved me. She never…she never wanted me. She hated me, Nadir, she hated me and—"

"Sshh. Ssshhh. She cannot hurt you now, Erik. I promise." You tighten your arms around him, your heart pounding so hard you can feel your blood rushing in your ears. His mother hated him? How could his mother hate him? The memory of Rookheeya, holding tiny Reza in her arms when he was only a newborn, flickers before you again but you shake it away. Now is not the time to think of them, now is the time for Erik. Only Erik, crying into your chest, his body so frail and weak with his injuries, and you know, you know if it were not for the opium still lingering in his blood he would never confess this to you at all, would hide it all away inside, but you are glad he told you, glad you know, now, so you can hold him tighter and keep him safe.

It comes to you that you should kiss him. Should press your lips to his forehead. You do care for him, in some way, and you have never showed him that enough. He whispered, only a couple of nights ago in an opium-haze, that you must surely hate him for all he has done, but he was too far gone for you to protest it and know that he would remember, and your gut twists but you _do_ care for him, you _do_ , and you have for such a long time.

His skin is soft beneath your lips, and he inhales sharply.

You kiss him again, and again, a line of soft kisses across his forehead, and he shudders against you, presses himself closer. Distantly you hear him whisper, half-shocked, "She never kissed me," and you kiss him a little harder, that his skin may always bear the memory of your kisses, and keep him safe in the night.

He shifts, and you are kissing his cheek, the salt of his tears on your tongue and you swallow, kiss away the wet trails from his crying and silently promise to protect him, silently promise to always be here for him, and then your lips are pressed to his, and he is gasping into your mouth, and whose tears are on your cheeks, his or yours, you cannot tell but it does not matter, and your heart burns with love for him, and though you know that this is wrong, that this is unnatural, you cannot care, because he needs you and you need him, you can see that now, and you pull back, your lips tingling from all the kisses, and he is looking at you with starry eyes, and you smile.

He smiles too, a lopsided, distorted smile, and you do not think you have ever seen a smile so lovely before, before he nuzzles back into your chest, and whispers, his normally unnoticeable accent thick, "Oh, Nadir."

The words are a benediction, and your heart soars.

* * *

 **A/N:** **I meant to write and post a last chapter for this back in the spring, but between one thing and another I never got around to it. Then in August unabashedgentlemenpirate on Tumblr asked me for a fic set during the Rosy Hours where the Daroga comforts Erik after a nightmare and there's a confession of love. This was the result and I posted it to Tumblr but not to here, so here it is now. Six months late but hopefully still wanted!**

 **As ever, please do let me know what you think. Though this fic is a little stylistically different to what I usually write, I am very fond of it.**


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